Care in a Land of Closing Hospitals
The Russian writer Maxim Osipov was best known as a medical doctor, until he began to publish arresting, empathetic stories of sickness and treatment.
Books
How To Think Freely
In their encounters with Western art, Soviet audiences found ways to reimagine themselves.
The Price of Meat
America’s obsession with beef was born of conquest and exploitation.
Amy Hempel’s Powerful Brevity
The narrators in “Sing to It” get through pain with the smallest, strongest words.
The Emptiness of Adam Gopnik’s Liberalism
His new book lacks a fundamental understanding of political-economic power.
Writing for the End Times
Giacomo Sartori’s novel “I Am God” narrates the ultimate existential crisis.
Book Publishers Have a Trump Problem
The rush to release a print version of the Mueller report is the latest example of a desperate industry increasingly addicted to quick takes for fast profit.
The Art of Unruliness
Saidiya Hartman’s book evokes the longings of black women once labeled “wayward.”
Unfinished Work
How sexism and machismo shaped a prestigious writing program
America’s Messiah Complex
How cults feed on American ideals, aspirations, and hypocrisies.
The Canonization of Richard Holbrooke
Why Third Way liberals saw a glamorous, difficult diplomat as the protector of their values
Gene Wolfe Was the Proust of Science Fiction
Out of the trauma of war, Wolfe found redemption in Catholicism and his voice in futuristic, philosophical novels.
The Making of an Anti-Semitic Myth
Francesca Trivellato’s book on the history of credit debunks a bigoted cliché.
Down to Earth
Why is the story of climate catastrophe so hard to tell?
Never Sorry
Eric Hobsbawm’s awkward embrace of the Establishment
Valeria Luiselli’s Impossible Novel
To tell a story of migrant children and the American family following them, “Lost Children Archive” needed a wider lens.
The Dean
Out of the ruins of war, Walter Gropius made a vital political community.
Sally Rooney’s Great Expectations
Her new novel captures a generation's beleaguered idealism.
How the Cold War Defined Scientific Freedom
The idea that liberal democracies shielded science from politics was always flawed.
Adventures in Modernism
The unlikely, energizing friendship of Hugh Kenner and Guy Davenport
